


Coda: Temperantia

by skeptique



Series: Of Virtues [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Look I Just Really Love These Kids Ok, Mutual Pining, You Can Skip All The Sex I Promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:22:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25473070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeptique/pseuds/skeptique
Summary: Post-War, Pansy Parkinson is a disgrace to both the traditional and progressive Wizarding worlds and she can't blame them for leaving her behind. She hasn't got the courage to pave her own way in the world. So wouldn't it be a bit of a disaster if she fell for Theodore Nott, her best friend and the most principled person she knows?Takes place after the events of Iustitia & Prudentia but before the epilogue.
Relationships: Theodore Nott/Pansy Parkinson
Series: Of Virtues [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844986
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Coda: Temperantia

**Author's Note:**

> As previously, I read A LOT of fic, but my Pansy in particular owes a lot to the Bucket List by GallaPlacidia. Death of the author in effect. Protect, support and cherish trans kids. 
> 
> Any errors are my fault and not that of my wonderful betas, ladyemmaline, startledredhead and fayezer. 
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr](https://skeptiquewrites.tumblr.com/)
> 
> 10/2020 - I supposed it might be sensible to write an actual summary.

For a disgraced socialite, Pansy Parkinson found there wasn’t much company to be had these days. It wasn’t so much a question of ideals as it was a question of the times. They had lost the war. It was a fool’s errand to pretend otherwise. Most of the people willing to be seen with her were clinging to a world that had passed out of their control. She didn't want to be seen with them. 

Pansy missed Draco terribly. She wrote him a lot to make up for it. There was always a slight delay because the Ministry checked his post so it wasn’t the same as before. But it was something. 

When Gregory Goyle had invited her to a social, she jumped at it. It was essentially a gathering of all the Sacred-Twenty Eight children who had avoided Azkaban and still had money hidden away. Pansy expected liquor, dancing and maybe some gambling. She swept into the Blackmoor with a beautiful set of pink dress robes that had an open back and the Parkinson ring on her left hand. She swore the privacy spell without thinking. Her black hair had been curled and pinned in an updo. 

All in all, it was a strange crowd but an okay time. Then Theodore Nott bumped into her and dropped a full pint down her front. 

“Theodore,” Pansy said sharply. He was handsome, she concluded, looking at him more closely. He was tall and solid like he had been at Hogwarts, but had grown into a strong jaw, aquiline nose and warm brown eyes. She did so love a good set of thick groomed eyebrows on a man. 

Pansy turned on her heel and Theo followed her into the kitchen where house-elves were preparing more punch bowls and hors d’oeuvres. His expression was neutral as he attempted to help her straighten up with some decent housekeeping spells. Then he moved into her personal bubble, entirely too close.

“This group is a cover. People here are planning something terrible,” Theo whispered in her ear. So the beer hadn’t been an accident. 

“How do you know?” She whispered back. House-elves could report back anything they said to their masters. So she stepped even closer and permitted him to place a hand on her lower back so she could rise on her tiptoes. Really, he was much taller than was polite, even with her five-inch heels.

“I overheard. Hughes said he wants to continue what _he_ was doing before the Fall,” Theo said, his voice pitched so low that she felt his words before she heard them. 

True, Pansy didn’t know Theo well, but she trusted his analysis. He was in the Ministry and couldn’t be involved in this kind of thing. If that was the case, that they had invited Theo at all was worrisome. It indicated carelessness or commitment, and either was dangerous. Apparently that privacy spell wasn’t casual. Pansy wasn’t about to be disgraced a second time. 

“Where’s Parkinson?” A voice called. 

They both heard the galley doors bang open at the same time. Theo kissed her before she could register what was happening. When he coaxed her mouth open, she almost forgot they had an audience. 

“Nott is trying to put the moves on Parkinson,” Rowle called back into the party. 

Theo broke apart from Pansy and smiled slyly at Rowle. Something in her registered the expression as false. 

“Mind your own business,” Theo said. Theo didn’t look back at Pansy, but held her hand securely as they went back into the ballroom. 

“I didn’t know you were so close,” Greg said. He sounded...less than friendly. 

“We know each other well enough,” Theo said, allowing his tone to be a shade more suggestive than polite. For the first time, he met Pansy’s eyes and winked. False again, but she blushed up to her roots all the same. 

“Theo, mind yourself,” Pansy said. She hit him lightly with her clutch to illustrate the point. 

“Pansy’s trouble. Be careful with this one,” Greg warned. Greg was going for playful but landed nearer to menacing. Theo’s arm tightened around her almost imperceptibly. 

They spent another forty-five minutes making a brief circuit around the room. Theo deftly sidestepped any statements about politics or Ministry policy. Pansy sensed Theo was right, and some people were a little too emphatic about the Old Ways to be casual bigotry.

“If you have anything the Ministry has perhaps overlooked, I might know some buyers who can put them to good use,” Marcus Flint said, leering down her dress. Honestly. 

Pansy was fairly certain some of their family’s Dark objects escaped the Aurors, but she wasn’t going to sell them to some blockhead for unknown purposes. 

“They’re family heirlooms, unfortunately. So much of our heritage was lost, as you know,” Pansy simpered. Theo was looking at Marcus like he’d seen Marcus looking and was very unhappy about it. 

Pansy could feel Greg’s eyes on them, calculating.

“Let’s leave _now_ ,” Pansy whispered in his ear. Theo looked at Marcus for a moment longer. 

“Shall we?” Theo answered. 

He kissed her on the cheek and led her to the fireplace. No one would think anything of them going home separately. But she felt safe encircled in his arms as she leaned on him, waiting for her cloak. 

“Come to mine for a nightcap?” Theo said. Pansy considered it carefully. Riskier. She already had a tattered reputation. 

“Just as friends,” He added. Pansy agreed. 

Ever since that day, Theodore Nott stuck by her side. 

*******

A year ago, she had a blazing row with her father. Her parents dangled the idea of a reduction in her trust to make her attend a Charity Ball last year. They wanted her to marry and marry well. She brought Theo and refused to dance with anyone else. She’d bought him new dress robes on her father’s credit, too.

“If he was any man at all, he would court you properly. He would buy you all your stupid trinkets and gowns. Instead, you both gallivant about town as if you’ll never marry! He was even disowned. Still you carry on! Him with no money and you with no morals,” Her father had screamed at her. 

Her mother had stood there silently. Her mother was exactly as a pureblood wife should be: perfect, silent, and immovable. 

Pansy loved her, but she didn’t want to live her life. 

Society was not so backwards that people didn’t have their own liaisons before formal betrothals, courtship or marriages. Blaise Zabini had before he married Astoria Greengrass. And yet, there could be signals it wasn’t serious. But her friendship with Theo had all the trappings of being serious without any formal agreement or romance. She’d heard the whispers. But Pansy didn’t give a damn what was proper when it came to Theo. 

“You dare lecture me about morals?” Pansy snapped. Normally she nodded along like her parents’ idea of a well-bred witch and did whatever she wanted. But she was so tired of these monologues. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her father drew back his shoulders. Her family talked around the fact Frances Parkinson was a convicted war profiteer. A third of their fortune had gone to reparations, and he had otherwise got away scot-free. 

“Have you forgotten what you did in the War? I could run around copying my tits on the front page of International Witch Weekly for one hundred years and never approach the depth of your sins. Don’t you lecture me,” Pansy had yelled back at him. 

She wrenched the Parkinson ring off her finger and flung it at him in a fit of pique and disappeared to Theo’s flat. 

But unlike Theo's situation, her mother had quietly returned the family ring back to her. She was the eldest and only. They would never disown her, if only because there weren’t other options and there would be questions. Deep down inside, Pansy knew she didn’t have the mettle to make it on her own like Theo, so she accepted it. She didn’t wear it on her finger anymore, but slipped it on a chain around her neck. 

Like everything else in their family, they ignored it going forward.

Pansy made many, many mistakes over the years. She would not taint a decent man’s reputation with her shame when Theodore Nott had shaken off his own. That’s why she always turned down anything from Theo that felt like a request for more than friendship. Pansy couldn’t match that in word or deed.

“Do you ever think about how we met?” Theo said. 

They were having a finger of Firewhiskey each to take the edge off of the evening. It surprised her that he even stocked hard liquor at home since he rarely drank it. She loved it here at his flat, though she desperately wanted to redecorate more than he liked. She was there most nights. 

Draco was at the Manor and recovering after his harrowing affair. There was no need for an entire crowd there while Harry, a Healer and Mrs. Malfoy looked after him. She was at least convinced that Harry was as devoted to Draco as Draco was to him. Narcissa had told them how Harry had carried Draco desperately for miles.

“Before Hogwarts?” She asked, being deliberately obtuse. They would have first met as children, probably at a function. 

“No, at that party,” Theo said. He rarely initiated conversations like this unless he was in a mood. 

“Sometimes,” Pansy admitted. Sometimes, she dreamed of it. 

“We should have gone on a date afterwards,” Theo said. Pansy drew a deep breath. She allowed herself to imagine if they had. Then she exhaled and let it go. 

“We wouldn’t work out. I’m too selfish and idle for you, Theo.” Pansy kept her tone light even though her heart was racing. 

“You’ve said that before,” Theo remarked. 

“It’s true,” Pansy insisted. “I’m not your type either.”

“Says who?” Theo said.

“You’ve never dated a single person who even vaguely looks like me,” Pansy said.

“I don’t go in for types like that. Doesn’t make sense to me. I like you for you,” Theo said simply. 

Pansy had not realized how close they were in Theo’s bed. With her legs tangled together with Theo’s, Pansy had a riot of feelings. 

On an impulse, she shifted up and kissed him for the second time ever. It was better than that hurried pantomime years ago. He tasted like every wonderful thing she had ever denied herself. Kissing him meant being sure she had lied to herself about how deeply she felt for him. Pansy threaded her fingers through his dark brown hair and moved her lips to his neck. 

“Pansy, I-” Theo said. Pansy shushed him with another kiss on the mouth. He kissed her back like she was precious. 

“Yes or no?” Pansy asked. 

Theo kept his hands to himself, tucked by his side. She didn’t want him to keep his hands to himself.

“Yes,” Theo said. 

He raised one hand to put her hair behind her ear, then flipped them over so he was on top of her. He bent and captured her mouth once more before leaning back to look his fill.

“What?” Pansy asked. He always liked her outfits, but he’d seen this pink linen gown before. Practically a workaday dress, if she owned anything close to that. 

“You’re very beautiful, that’s all,” Theo said. His voice was lower than usual, gravelly. If Pansy imagined herself the seductress, she found she was mistaken. She blushed and blushed again when he focused on undoing every single button on the bodice before pressing a kiss to her bare breast and then to her mouth again. His hand pinched her nipple lightly, and she surged. 

Like in everything else, Theo was methodical. She was trying to wrap her mind around finally kissing Theo while he, much better at multitasking, had flipped her dress up and gently pressed a finger against her. 

Pansy lost patience and pulled at his grey t-shirt. They were not going to do this while she was undressed and he was fully clothed. She knelt. He sat back on his heels and allowed her to pull it off. 

This time, she was the one who looked. His shoulders and chest were broad, pale, solid and dusted with light brown hair. He had a couple scars scattered on his torso. Some childhood accidents, no doubt, and others work-related. She laid a hand on his chest and looked at him. He stared back, warm brown eyes taking her in.

“You must know you’re very handsome,” Pansy said, tracing one jagged scar above his nipple with her index finger. He laughed at her indirect compliment. 

“Do you think so then?” He asked. His voice was teasing. She flushed again. Pansy wasn’t any good at sincerity, so instead she scrambled off the bed and shed her dress, bra and knickers. 

“Were you going to finish fingering me or not?” Pansy asked, kneeling back on the bed. Theo had shed his trousers and wore nothing but boxers. He obliged while kissing her again. The first touch made her gasp, and she could feel him smile at her surprise.

“You’re so wet,” He mumbled. Theo skimmed along, avoiding penetration and her clit no matter how she writhed. He drew it out until she was panting. Then when he finally sank home, he moved his mouth back to the same breast he had nuzzled earlier, and the sensation was too much to handle. 

Pansy let out an embarrassing squeak, but he didn’t seem bothered. Theo sank his index finger all the way inside slowly and withdrew. She wanted to make him hurry, but no amount of rocking her hips or reaching to touch him made him move any faster. 

“Please?” Pansy begged.

Theo added a second finger but continued at the same pace. He built her desire bit by bit and she finally came. He murmured sweet nonsense in her ear and held her until she stopped shaking. When she finally regained some feeling in her legs, she turned to him and kissed him again deeply.

“Tell me what you want,” Pansy asked him. She took the fingers Theo had used and sucked them clean and his eyes widened just a touch. Tasting herself on him was a delight. Theo flushed as if he hadn’t been the one to bring her to pieces. 

“Would you get on top?” He asked. 

“Yes.”

Pansy reached for her wand and performed the requisite spells. Theo laid back in his bed, pausing only to take off his boxers. Pansy straddled him, then sank down inch by inch until his cock was fully seated inside her. This felt perfect. She didn’t normally like this position very much, but she loved the way he looked at her from below.

“Pansy, are you going to make me beg?” Theo said. His voice was rough.

Instead of responding, she rose and sank very, very slowly. Theo hissed and his eyes fluttered shut. He braced his hands on her hips. Something bloomed in her chest, watching the pulse in his neck. She swooped down and kissed it before setting a quicker pace. She kissed him on each eyelid, his brows and then tasted his mouth. He shifted slightly and her strokes downward felt even better.

“Theo,” She cried out. 

“Are you close?” He asked. 

She was bent over him. Pansy was about to shake her head no, though her legs were trembling then the orgasm snuck up on her. Her rhythm faltered, but Theo took a firm grip on her waist and ground into her for a few more seconds before coming himself. It had been a while since she’d slept with anyone, but she was sure it wasn’t normally this good. 

“Fuck, Pansy.” Theo said.

His hair was a mess, and they were both sticky. A fine sheen of sweat covered him. She climbed off and went to the washroom to tidy up and get a grip. When she had returned, he had cast some spells and cleaned the sheets and folded her dress. Theo kissed her again, and she felt an echo of that shivery post-orgasm rush. 

Theo swept Pansy into his arms, and they fell asleep that way. 

The next morning she left before Theo woke up. She wasn’t sure how to deal with the fact that he was still in her system. If anything, now she knew exactly how good it could be, it was worse. She refused his owls and firecalls for a week to let him calm down, then wrote him to meet at the Three Broomsticks. 

If Pansy thought he would avoid making a scene in public, she was sadly mistaken. 

“What the fuck, Pansy?” Theo said. A couple days' worth of stubble marked his chin. He looked like a wreck. They had slept together once, and she’d ruined the man. 

“I...I....” Pansy trailed off as Theo sat across from her with his arms folded. “I’m sorry.” 

Pansy realized she couldn’t recall a single other person Theodore Nott might have slept with more than once in the last decade. It was hard to date when he was always with her. And she had opinions. 

Justin Finch-Fletchley, she’d informed him, had an annoying laugh. Hannah Abbott was childish and too cheery. She had said nothing about Terry Boot but accidentally kicked him a half dozen times under the table when they were introduced. It would start a fight if Theo mentioned Annemarie, who Pansy believed had mockingly offered them a threesome. After that he seemed to have lost interest in regular dating and went on the occasional pull without her. 

They both stood on the edge of one society who had no use for them and another that they were too changed to take part in fully. She and Draco were his only friends. And then she seduced him. She was a monster. A monster who chewed up handsome, loyal, lonely boys for sport and spat them out. 

She wanted his happiness more than her own.

“For fuck sakes, Pansy. I don’t want you to be sorry. We practically lived together. Come home with me.”

She’d heard him enter the front door a few days after that incident. 

“Theo, I know you said not to buy you things, but—” She stopped dead at Theo’s expression. His brow furrowed, and he was deep in concentration. He was wearing his black Ministry robes, but he had taken off his boots. 

“Pardon?” Theo said when he realized he’d been staring off into space. 

“Is something wrong? Did something happen at work?” Pansy asked. She never asked him about work, but he looked so troubled. 

“Nothing I can talk about with you, unfortunately,” Theo answered. He sighed. 

Pansy kissed him softly, and he obliged. He relaxed in her arms and then pulled away. 

“Pansy...” Theo had this warning undertone to his voice. 

“Theo...” she mimicked, gently mocking him.

This time when Theo kissed her, he wasn’t nearly as sweet as the last time. He claimed her mouth thoroughly. When he tired of their height difference, Theo scooped her up and let her feet dangle on either side of her torso.

“Should we be doing this again?” She asked him. Theo paused and carried her to the living room, depositing her on the couch. 

“You tell me.” Theo said. He was entirely calm. He let go of the ankle he had been holding and she felt that loss. “I’ll ask you this time, yes or no?”

“If I say no?” Pansy asked. Theo was intent on her at this moment, but whatever was bothering him was still on his mind. 

“Then I respect that,” Theo said. And Pansy believed him. He would go take a shower, wear one of the plain muggle t-shirts he reserved for home use and read one of Draco’s books he was always forgetting to return. They would have dinner. 

“You know the answer is yes, though,” Pansy said. Theo’s smile this time was sexy, slow and a little feral. 

“If I promise to buy you a new dress, can I tear this one?” Theo asked. Pansy nodded and in a bit of inventive wandless magic, her black dress split up the middle of the front and she gasped. He swallowed that sound. 

She only had one other time to compare it to, but this fevered pace differed from the slow, languorous sex they’d had last time. This time he paused only to shed his Unspeakable robes to his underwear and then laid her out on the couch. He pushed the remains of her dress off her shoulders and cast it behind.

“Too fast?” Theo asked. His chest was already heaving. 

“No, keep going,” Pansy said. He hovered over her, kissing her again desperately, then lowered his head between her legs. He didn’t ask this time, simply Vanished her underwear without so much as a by your leave. 

Theo kissed her inner thighs, and she shivered. Without preamble, he tasted her and moaned. Then he set to work alternately long luxurious licks with quick flicks over her clit. Pansy came in record time, and Theo barely let her settle before starting again. Someone had taught him well, she thought jealously. It should have been her. By the time she came a second time, Theo had to pin her to the couch to keep her from bucking wildly.

"May I?" Theo asked. He looked exquisite to her—mouth pink and shiny with his efforts, iris just a faint circle of brown around his pupils. She also liked his asking. 

"Yes," Pansy answered. 

He grabbed his discarded wand and then performed the contraceptive spells. By the look of his wand work, he was probably much better at it than she was. When he sank into her, he watched her steadily. Pansy let her eyes flutter shut. 

“Look at me please,” Theo said. She opened her eyes. Theo’s eyes never left hers, but he sped up a little, hips stuttering.

“You’re very demanding, Theodore,” Pansy said, teasingly. 

His smile was more shy. She puzzled over the fact they could literally be fucking, but it was her talking that made him flush with pleasure. He came not long after, calling her name. He insisted on seeing her through a third orgasm before they collapsed.

This time, Pansy did not sneak out in the middle of the night. She did one worse. They ate dinner. They had sex again in his bed again frantically. The next morning she left him a note after they had eaten breakfast together and he had left for work. 

_I think I need some time to wrap my head around this. Sorry. Pansy_

“Where’s the Nott boy?” Her father asked when she slunk into the house. Pansy shrugged. She realized the dress she intended to wear after a hot, bracing shower was at Theo’s. 

This time Theo did not send any messages at all. She suspected the firecalls from the convalescent Draco were to check in on her. 

“How is Theo?” She tried to ask casually. It was hard to look at Draco when he was hurt. 

“How do you think Theo is when you keep breaking his heart, Pansy? If I were not on bed rest, I would come over to Parkinson Place and kick your arse," Draco said. 

On one hand, Pansy was glad Theo had become dear to Draco if he was defending him so fiercely. On the other, Pansy wanted someone to say she was being reasonable. 

Someone, presumably Harry, spoke indistinctly in the background. 

“Harry said Theo is moping around the Ministry looking like someone kicked his crup,” Draco added.

“He’ll come around. I need time to think,” Pansy tried. 

“Don’t take forever,” Draco said firmly. “He is definitely in love with you. I take it from reading between the lines that knowing this, you slept with him and then ran away _twice_ ,” Draco said. Put that way, it sounded awful. 

"It wasn't like that," Pansy said. “I didn’t think he would take it like this.”

“Theo takes everything seriously, Pansy. You know that,” Draco sounded tired now. "If you don’t want him, tell him before this goes any further,” Draco said. He signed off to rest. 

Merlin, until recently she had imagined a future with her, Draco and Theo where they all pitched in and bought a house in the country and lived as friends. Because it was the only life possible for her. Of course she wanted Theo. She was overwhelmed to know that it was even within reach.

The wheels started turning immediately. Pansy wanted to fix this, she really did. She was afraid he wouldn’t even answer her messages. In retrospect, it felt like they had engaged in a ten year long game of keep away and then changed the rules. 

So she showed up at his flat in Devon when she knew he’d be home. It was only when the door opened and Theo stood there that she realized this could backfire horribly. He paused for a moment, then allowed her to come in and sit down.

She had dressed up, because she had nothing better to do. She wore a cloak over a maxi dress. Both were made of a diaphanous material that refracted light so it looked almost see-through. It was French and next season, but if there was an occasion for it, it was now. Theo looked at her from her beautifully coiffed hair to her polished boots. Pansy greedily catalogued his approval. 

“Why did you run off, Pansy? Did I do something wrong? Did you want to stay friends?” Theo asked. 

Until now, Pansy had not seen the cruelty inherent in what she did. Theo, who had never believed anything bad about Pansy no matter what she thought of herself, must have thought it was his fault. 

“No, no, no. Theo, it wasn’t you. I needed some time to think about the next steps.” Theo sank his face into his hands. 

“I thought I fucked everything up,” Theo said, muffled by his palms. Pansy put her hands around his forearms and tried to peer at him. He wasn’t crying, but he was taking large shuddering breaths. 

“That would be me, darling,” Pansy said quietly. 

“Explain to me why we keep doing this,” Theo said.

“I wanted to give you the chance to find another witch who isn't a notorious, washed up, high maintenance snob,” Pansy said. “But since you refuse to, I’m available.” 

She tried to sound casual, but really she was ready to throw up on the spot. She couldn’t believe people willingly sought this feeling out and called it bravery. But she could tell by his expression that for once, Theo did not appreciate her wit. 

“You know I can’t date when you’re around. Available for what, Pansy? Sex?” Theo asked, sounding resigned. “If you want to date for a few months and then pretend to be friends, I can’t do that.”

Pansy reached into her purse and felt the velvet ring box. She knelt down carefully to avoid scuffing her heels and presented the Parkinson family ring, a single black diamond circled in tiny white diamonds. He knew what this meant, even presented in an unorthodox way. 

“Mr. Theodore Nott, will you marry me?” Pansy said. Theo’s mouth hung open. She suddenly worried about what his response would be. Maybe he thought she’d finally lost it.This was the sort of foolish, impulsive thing she did. He would be subjected to it for the rest of her life if he accepted. 

“Yes,” Theo said firmly. 

He took the ring out of the box and put it on his left ring finger, before helping her up. Theo kissed Pansy like his life depended on it. Some tension slipped out of her body. Theo was here. Theo was hers. 

“You’re a silly goose, you know that? You could have asked me on a proper date,” Theo said. 

Still trembling from the adrenaline, Pansy smiled at him. 

“Why bother with the small stuff?” Pansy said. “Aren’t we in love?”


End file.
